Early this week, Barack Obama pinch-hit for Hillary Clinton as she was on bed rest due to her latest health episode, and he called out the media for not hitting hard enough against Donald Trump. The response was swift. Lead stories across all major media outlets this morning criticized Trump for his non-response to the question over the old controversy questioning Obama’s place of birth.

The Washington Post lead headline read, “Trump tells Post he is unwilling to say Obama was born in the U.S.” The New York Times headlined, “Donald Trump Again Won’t Acknowledge Obama Was Born in U.S.” And the lead headline from CBS News was, “Trump on ‘birther’ stance: ‘Keep the suspense going.’” The NBC News lead headline says, “Why Donald Trump Can’t Escape His ‘Birther’ Past.” Let’s not leave out ABC News, which headlined, “Trump Promises ‘Big Announcement’ on Whether He Believes Obama Was Born in US.” Even Fox News jumped in the fray: “‘Birther’ Remarks Resurface: Trump, Clinton trade barbs over Obama birth certificate controversy.”

The irony is that the so called “birther” controversy wasn’t actually started by conservatives at all. Instead, it finds its roots with Hillary Clinton’s supporters back in 2008. A 2011 Politico article reported, “At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama.” That “something, anything” was to raise questions regarding Obama’s place of birth. The irony is that she and her Leftmedia supporters are playing this same card again hoping to trip up Trump as he has recently surged in the polls.

The bigger story here is not some old controversy of little real consequence or importance for the current election, but rather the Leftmedia’s Pavlovian response to Obama’s dog whistle. One can bet on the media making every effort to daily produce similar anti-Trump stories through Election Day. And if Trump’s poll numbers continue to rise, the media’s negative onslaught will only intensify.

> Update: Trump essentially trolled the entire media on the controversy quite brilliantly this morning. He told them he’d make a statement on the birther issue, and when all the media outlets tuned in, he trotted out 44 military flag officers and 14 Medal of Honor recipients who are endorsing him. After they spent 20 minutes forced to run positive coverage of the event before cutting way, he then said, “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.”

> CNN’s Jake Tapper groused, “They’re much greater men than Rick Astly, [but] it’s hard to imagine this is anything other than a political Rick Roll.” As for Trump, the media’s never going to give him up, but he just let them down.